


lightning strike.

by angelkoushi



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Romance, but this ends well i swear, happy birthday king konoha, one of them dies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:01:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26729329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelkoushi/pseuds/angelkoushi
Summary: Soulmates are given one chance to meet in each of their lifetimes. If they succeed, they get to spend one last life together. If they fail, they can try again in the next life.But if, for some reason, they were able to meet and things still don't work out, time will stop for one of them until the chance in the next lifetime comes.
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji/Konoha Akinori
Comments: 1
Kudos: 23





	lightning strike.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote a drabble/oneshot of this AU before, using OCs, [here](https://www.wattpad.com/842293430-paraluman-a-short-story-collection-031717) and decided to rewrite it with KonoAka for Konoha's birthday. Hope you like it!

***

In one corner of the world, for one particular man, all manner of time had ceased to move.

Konoha Akinori remembers well the way with which he was cut off from the rest of the world. Like how quickly the slash of a blade dismembers, so he too was dropped from the flow of time. 

He is alive, but not living. He sees, hears, smells, but never touches. People brush by him, walk right through him, but to them, he was never there. Not a breath, not a shadow.

And yet there he is, existing in the small sigh between asleep and awake, in a pocket of the universe in which time is immaterial.

How did this come about? That too, Akinori remembers well.

He remembers well the night where it should all have ended, this cruel repeat of life and death. Before that fateful night, Akinori had lived more than a hundred lifetimes in search of his other half. With each life comes a single chance to meet, a single moment to end the cycle and to live one last life together.

Before that fateful night, they have never been so close. They were always in different places, in different stages of life. Different circumstances, different issues kept them apart, completely unaware of each other’s existence.

But then came that night. It was raining torrents, and he was waiting to cross the street to head back to the barracks for lights out. Akinori remembers the burn of his flesh and the throng of his blood, and he looked around wildly. His partner was close.

Reachable, knowable. Finally.

The first moment they caught each other’s eyes, Akinori felt lightning run down his spine, quickly followed by a shower of frozen water. Fate, even after the sliver of a chance it gave, remains cruel.

Akinori was helpless as he watched a certain foot soldier under his platoon salute him and step into the street. Not registering quick enough the change in the signals, the resounding honk, and the harsh glare of light.

Akinori felt him go, and felt the moment life was snuffed out of him. The boy was gone even before the blood on the pavement had stopped spreading. 

It felt like a light inside Akinori died and he was left hollow and breathless. When the crowd started gathering and the sirens began blaring, Akinori knew he had fallen away from this plane of existence. Time stopped for him and him alone, and he became a mere memory.

He has roamed the world many times over since, as if he were a wandering spirit. The world was never the same way twice. Wars were fought and won, cities crumbled and were rebuilt, and weather-beaten paths were paved over. The times changed too fast, and it waited for no one; it certainly did not wait for the likes of him. He watched as an outsider looking in; always seeing but never a part.

* * *

Akinori met him again under the shade of a tall tree.

It is the quaintest of meetings, a mere brushing of gazes as he ran past Akinori under the heavy pour of rain. Like lightning striking where it pleased, it was an encounter Akinori never foresaw, never once expected. But it was like a thousand candles lighting up all at once inside him, and amidst the icy gale of the howling storm, his body grew warm.

He felt safe. He felt home.

His partner, on the other hand, did not look much like home in that particular moment. Hair disheveled, clothes in disarray, eyes wild with worry and panic. The sky was dark and the storm unrelenting, and he had no umbrella nor any means to shield himself. He was going to look like nature has had its way with him before he ever got to his destination.

But Akinori knew that he had been seen. In so long a time he had spent without anyone casting even a doubtful glance at his non-existent shadow, his olive eyes met with sea green ones. A look of recognition flashed in the other boy’s eyes, only to be washed away again by the glaze of his worries.

“Wait.”

He skidded to a stop, almost hurtling over because of the slippery grass. Then, wonder of wonders, he turned around and looked right at Akinori.

There it was again: the sensation of a lightning strike. It was a feeling unlike any other.

“Yes?”

Akinori debated quickly whether to go with, “You can see me?” or “Do you need an umbrella?”

He very wisely decided to go with the latter.

The other boy blinked. “Would you happen to have one? You’re just as soaked as I am.”

Akinori looked down on himself and chuckled softly. He had never needed an umbrella before. Much like the people, things such as sunlight and raindrops haven’t paid him any mind in the last millenia or so.

And yet there he was, soaked to the bone and teeth chattering in the cold for the first time in so long. He had never felt more alive.

“I do,” he said, and drew out the umbrella he has carried with him from ages ago, the one he might have shared with his partner before things changed.

“Are you from around here?” the other boy asked, probably taking into account Akinori’s outdated military uniform.

“I’m from everywhere,” and while that might have sounded mysterious and vague, it wasn’t far off from the truth.

The other boy lifted an arm to take the umbrella, and Akinori willingly parted with it. As an afterthought, the boy said, “Don’t you need it, wherever you’re going?”

Akinori shrugged. “Think of it as an act of kindness from a random stranger. Keep it, and when you find someone who needs it, pass it on.”

The boy looked up at him. He was a few inches shorter, with close-cropped wavy hair and fair skin dotted with goosebumps from the cold. He wore a gray blazer over a white shirt and a light blue tie.  _ A student _ , Akinori mused.

But it was his eyes that Akinori was drawn towards: they had the color of the turbulent sea, ever-shifting in the light and just as deep. Akinori wondered just what thoughts lay beneath the darkened surface.

It felt strange, being seen again. The boy studied Akinori’s face, as if looking for something that was no longer there. He stared as if he was trying to see deep into Akinori’s soul, into all his past lives and all the lives that have passed him by. Akinori’s skin prickled at the intent in his solid gaze.

After a long moment, the boy said, “Have we met before?”

Akinori’s lips curled into the slightest of smiles as butterflies settled in his stomach. “No.”  _ Not in this lifetime, at least. _

The boy’s forehead creased, and Akinori could just see the gears in his head turning, trying to connect dots that refused to make sense together.

“I must have mistaken you for someone else,” he finally said, but he didn’t look convinced. “I suppose I’ll give you back this umbrella, then. When we meet again.”

_ When. _

“Curious. Will you be seeing me again?”

The boy frowned deeper, chewed at his bottom lip. “I suppose not. I don’t know, really.”

“Then again, is it so impossible? What’s to keep us from meeting again?”

This time, the boy cocked an eyebrow. “Sorry, are you sure we’ve never met?”

“Not that I remember.” 

_ Because this is a different life. You wear a different face, even as I’ve been the same since we first met. _

_ But it’s you. It’s always been you. _

“I suppose there’s really no telling,” the boy finally said, then held out a free hand. “I’m Keiji. Akaashi Keiji.”

Akinori blinked in surprise, hesitated. Then reached out and grasped the boy’s hand.

The first touch, the first time their skins learned the taste of each other, stole Akinori’s breath from his lungs. It was as if electricity flowed out from Keiji’s hand and into his, and he flinched. But he didn’t withdraw his hand; instead, he gripped it harder.

“Some spark,” Keiji said with a light laugh. “Our skins must be charged.”

“Yes, rather shocking,” quipped Akinori, half-hoping his humor was not as outdated as his stature.

When Keiji laughed, Akinori took a moment to thank fate. Cruel as it is, it still allowed for clandestine meetings of kindred souls who have spent lifetimes apart looking for one another, only to fall in together like pieces of a puzzle. 

One chance for every lifetime, and one life together to live to the fullest.

Akinori gripped Keiji’s hand, and he swore to the heavens, to Keiji, and to himself to never let go. 

“Good to meet you, Akaashi Keiji. I’m Akinori. Konoha Akinori.”

And in that moment, time began to flow.

***

**Author's Note:**

> I also [tweeted](https://twitter.com/koushiangel/status/1310882420426637317?s=20) the prompt for it if you're interested or idk AHAHAHA anyway!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you liked it, and have a great day! ^^


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